In the reign of Henry VIII. the arsenals of Woolwich and Deptford were founded, the latter being afterwards put under the direction of the Trinity House. It is in this reign that we meet with the first official document relating to the establishment at Deptford Strond. A royal charter of incorporation was granted in the sixth year of the reign, wherein Henry grants license to his beloved people and subjects, the shipmen and mariners of England, to _new begin_, erect, create, ordain, found, unite, and establish a certain guild or perpetual fraternity of themselves and other persons, as well men as women, in the parish-church of Deptford Strond, in the county of Kent. This charter permits the brethren to elect one master, four wardens, and eight assistants, to govern and oversee the guild, and have the custody of the lands and possessions thereof, &c. Queen Elizabeth, in the first year of her reign, recognised all the rights and immunities of the corporation, and in the eighth of her reign an act was passed enabling them to preserve ancient sea-marks, to erect beacons, marks, and signs for the sea, and to grant licenses to mariners during the intervals of their engagements to ply for hire as watermen on the river Thames. This act recites the destruction of steeples, woods, and other marks on the coasts, whereby divers ships had been lost, to the great detriment and hurt of the common weal, and the perishing of no small number of people, and forbids the destruction of any existing marks after notice under a penalty of one hundred pounds. In the reign of James I. a question arose as to whether the privileges granted to the Trinity House by the act of 8th of Elizabeth included _lighthouses_, which, it would appear, were not introduced in England at the time it was passed. The opinion of Sir Francis Bacon was sought in the matter, and on it an order in council was founded, 26th March, 1617. The opinion was,--‘That lighthouses are marks and signs within the meaning of the statute and charter. That there is an authority, mixed with a trust settled in that corporation, for the erection of such lighthouses, and other marks and signs as may serve from time to time, as the accidents and moveable nature of the sands and channels doth require, grounded upon the skill and experience which they have in marine service, and this authority and trust cannot be transferred from them by law, but as they only are answerable for the defaults, so they only are trusted with the performance, it being a matter of a high and precious nature, in respect of the salvation of ships and lives, and a kind of starlight in that element.’